A god implants in mortal guilt whenever he wants utterly to confound a house.
AeschylusRead
ATHENA: There are two sides to this dispute. I've heard only one half the argument. (...) So you two parties, summon your witnesses, set out your proofs, with sworn evidence to back your stories. Once I've picked the finest men in Athens, I'll return. They'll rule fairly in this case, bound by a sworn oath to act with justice.
Interpretation
Justice requires hearing all sides of a dispute before making a decision.
This quote emphasizes the importance of impartiality and the necessity of considering multiple perspectives in any argument. It highlights the value of fair judgment and the role of witnesses and evidence in reaching a just conclusion, reflecting a philosophical stance on the nature of justice and decision-making.
In practice
During a legal seminar discussing the importance of fairness in trials.
A god implants in mortal guilt whenever he wants utterly to confound a house.
Neither a life of anarchy nor a life under a despot should you praise. To all that lies in the middle has a god given excellence.
In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.
It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.
In war, truth is the first casualty.
There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
The whole society depends on creating ambition in you. Ambition means a conflict, ambition means that whatsoever you are, you are wrong - you have to be somewhere else. Wherever you are, you are wrong - you have to be somewhere else. A constant madness to be somewhere else, to be somebody else, is what ambition is.
First and last follow each other.
Could I anticipate the enmity of those for whom I encountered such opposition? If they had been willing, I should have gained the victory. But the head faints when it is abandoned by the other members. If they had been wise they would have seen that in attacking me they were attacking their own privileges and serving princes to their own servitude.
I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours.
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.
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